[Adam Smith]

[DevilDodo] “Also, I’ve just realised that I had “+R” in my original post… My pricing was actually based on “-R”… not sure if that makes any difference…?”

No idea about longevity, but I heard and been directed to a few articles that suggest +R is a better format, burning faster and with fewer errors. Haven’t experienced it, but it was interesting enough info to make me wish I could switch over. Too bad none of our (older) Macs at work will read a +R disc…

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Video Photographer / Avid Editor / Final Cut Neophyte

[Adam Smith]

If it’s a firewire drive with a power supply then you’re in business… connect the drive first, then power on the camera and switch to 1394 Host mode and you can dump P2 cards with verify. The drive needs to be formatted by the camera first, and the camera will create a partition equal to the capacity of each card.

On my camera (HPX500) with 16GB cards I’d say it takes around 25 minutes each, although I could be wrong. Never had to do it mid-shoot. =P

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Video Photographer / Avid Editor / Final Cut Neophyte

[Adam Smith]

[DevilDodo] “DVD+R:
– Cheapest of all options at $0.18 /GB.
– Comparatively very small storage space.
– Fast write speed compared to Blu-ray and LTO.
– 10-30 year lifetime.”

Hmm.. last info I heard was about 6 months ago and that research was showing that the dyes used to form the “pits” in burned DVDs can begin to fade in as little as 5 years.

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Video Photographer / Avid Editor / Final Cut Neophyte

[Adam Smith]

If you’re on an intel-mac then search these forums for your answer, there’s several posts with the link to the correct installer (the Avid site is horrible).

If it’s a non-intel mac then I’d just double check to see you have the right codecs and in the right places, I’ve not had trouble with getting them installed until I got an intel.

[Adam Smith]

I decided to avoid Lithium-Ion for now because of the high-draw issues and the fact that extreme heat is very bad for them… now the Dionic’s claim to be made to handle high draw without damage, but I’d check to see if any other manufacturers make that same claim. Plus they seem to be a lot slower to charge, and the only advantages seem to be weight (I could use the exercise) and cost (which is a big one).

I went with NiMH myself.

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Video Photographer / Avid Editor / Final Cut Neophyte

[Adam Smith]

I went with an Exabyte VXA2 Packet Tape Drive for P2 and FCP project backups, as I like the fact that it verifies as it writes, and of course magnetic tape is still the best solution for long-term storage.

I initially copy from the camera to an external firewire drive (with verify), then I use P2CMS to copy (with verify) to internal HD. From there I back up to my tape archive and I’m set.

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Video Photographer / Avid Editor / Final Cut Neophyte

[Adam Smith]

Is the girl black and white or color? Does she need to be perfectly normal looking in a black and white world, or could her color have soft edges? Also, is she moving towards/away from the camera or is the camera panning to follow her as she passes by?

If it has to be perfect, then you’ve got a lot of painstaking rotoscoping to do. If it can be artistically soft then maybe you can get by with a much simpler roto-job – the softer the edges and more bleed you’re willing to accept, the easier the job will be. Also consider how the background will be changing.. if the transition is behind her then you’ll have to do a decent job of masking all of her edges, whereas if the transition happens under her, then you can probably go simpler on masking her back half since she’ll be color on color anyways.

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Video Photographer / Avid Editor / Final Cut Neophyte

[Adam Smith]

I have the Tandem 70 power supply/charger and while I like it, I was disappointed to find out that it cannot charge while powering the camera. Add to that the fact that AntonBauer recommends that you have one charging station per battery and keep them on the charger when not in use, and having a one-slot charger OR power supply becomes limiting.

I’m also having a slight issue that I think is HPX500 related – in the manual it says to make sure any power supply is turned on before turning on the camera. I believe the power supply is a little slow to switch from charging to powering camera, because several times now I’ve turned on the camera only to get a low battery warning when I’m actually on AC. Only solution is to shut down and fire it up again.

So… while I’m a fan of the small, light, camera mounted AC supply… I’m not as excited about the charging end of things. My plan is to pick up one of the Tandem Twin dual-chargers for my actual charging, and then use the Tandem 70 almost purely for supplying power.

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Video Photographer / Avid Editor / Final Cut Neophyte

[Adam Smith]

Same thing happened to me… I searched the Avid site and found that same (wrong) set of Avid codecs over and over.

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Video Photographer / Avid Editor / Final Cut Neophyte

[Adam Smith]

Sounds to me to be a kickass camera… I’d love to get one but I seem to be a good $70-100k short. =P

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Video Photographer / Avid Editor / Final Cut Neophyte